May 10, 2017

WindowMirror developed Butterfly, a new product that will hit the market to help people with dementia and their caregivers.

WindowMirror, a Chicago-based Start-Up, has been busy developing an innovative technology called Butterfly for people living with dementia and their caregivers. They are opening an investment round to the public today under the new equity crowdfunding model phenomenon on platform StartEngine.

“We are planning to pack a lot into this incredibly easy to use, predictive and engaging experience. Butterfly will be a person-centered, dementia friendly and capable virtual assistant and caregiver utility,” says WindowMirror CEO Sean Fahey. “Our goal is to revolutionize how people living with dementia optimize states of flow because we believe that when you’re diagnosed with this incurable disease, you have a window to do amazing things, and the clock is ticking. We want to be part of a movement where anyone living with dementia can add value and legacy for generations and want to empower them to do so.” Fahey incorporated WindowMirror in response to what he calls the “undervaluation, stigmatization, and marginalization of human potential related to Alzheimer’s.”

Butterfly’s primary use case will be a hands-free always listening, voice command prompted, speech to text experience where people living with dementia can save and share thoughts, memories, stories, ideas, and feelings, with their closest loved ones. And that same use case can be utilized by professional caregivers for hands-free dictation. And the aggregated palliative care and clinical data gathered will improve outcomes for Healthcare Providers, Insurance Providers, and Pharmaceutical Companies.

On your phone, you will be able to use a simple command prompt to engage speech in texting as soon as a thought comes to mind. We are seeing conversational UX (user experience) and virtual assistants emerging across the tech spectrum. “We see this advancement providing impact in the aging space, specifically the dementia care area, which is significantly underserved in tech, and also often over-priced,” says CEO Sean Fahey.

Sean and his team have had an incredible two years developing and think-tanking Butterly. They’ve made a few pivots along the way, finding what is the fundamental value-add for people living with dementia. With some early in capital they prototyped and built a solid proof of concept and Sean been traveling around the country, speaking at AARP’s Dementia Technology and Innovation Forum in Washington D.C., Agin2.0’s global startup search in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, and Million Cups of Coffee tech talks in Denver and Minneapolis. He has also been part of several dementia technology think tanks and work groups.

“People living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias are underserved,” says CEO Sean Fahey. “We are providing a complimentary service for people with dementia to give the greatest gift for their family and friends, their thoughts, story, and feeling, in words. We will also have a very affordable Subscription as a Service (SaaS), for a small monthly fee, $1 a month or $10 a year; you’ll be able to add layers to your experience and give your caregivers more valuable virtual input. But SaaS isn’t our only monetization model. We have an industry level monthly subscription fee that will break down to approximately $5/month per user’s data, and want to leverage the aggregated palliative care data with Healthcare Providers, Insurance Providers, and Pharmaceutical Companies. I also see licensing arrangements with governments as a real possibility in the EU, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, China, Japan, and anywhere we find a good culture fit. If you’re a country giving amazing technology to your population, we will work with pricing to make sure everyone has access.”

Approximately 5.3 million people are living with Alzheimer’s and over 15 million caregivers in the US alone. Every 66 seconds someone is diagnosed with the disease. About 10,000 baby boomers retire every day and one out of every eight will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. About 50% of baby boomers turning 65 use smartphone technology and that number is rapidly increasing every year. WindowMirror sees Butterfly being ahead of the curve. “We are at the apex, here in the states, where the rubber meets the road. Technology has become predictive and adaptive enough to make an impact in the underserved dementia tech space that keeps growing and growing. This is about providing impact at critical mass.”

Equity Crowdfunding is a mechanism that enables broad groups of investors to fund startup companies and small businesses in return for equity. Investors give money to a company and receive ownership of a small piece of that business. On May 16, 2016, Title III of the 2012 JOBS Act’s Regulation CF came into effect which allows equity crowdfunding, regardless of net worth or income. StartEngine is a trailer blazer in the space under Regulation A+ of the JOBS Act, which allows both accredited and non-accredited investors to invest in private companies.
“The angel Investor ecosystem has changed a lot over the past five years, a lot more strategic and VC minded,” says CEO Fahey; “equity crowd funding blows the doors off of the standard investment model and gives startups the chance to reach into a much deeper pool of potential investors. People who are concerned Alzheimer’s, dementia care, elder care technology, are now my new angel Investors. They can be altruistic, while at the same time become stakeholders in the WindowMirror Butterfly journey.”